National Security Minister vows to clamp down on vigilante groups

Minister of State in Charge of National Security, Bryan Acheampong, has promised to wage a war on vigilante groups whose activities distort the peace of the country.

Mr Acheampong’s promise follows a recent attack on a state official in Kumasi by pro-New Patriotic Party (NPP) vigilante group, Delta Force, over the weekend.

The heavily-built members of Delta Force disrupted a meeting of constituency executives which was being chaired by the Member of Parliament (MP) for Old Tafo Pankrono Constituency, Dr Anthony Akoto Osei, who is also Minister of state for Monitoring and Evaluation.

The pro-NPP vigilante group was agitating over the Minister’s failure to fulfil his promise to get the government to recruit them into the security agencies of the country.

Speaking on to the media, Bryan Acheampong indicated “we are not going to form an NPP-police and the fact that the NPP has won the election doesn’t mean we should recruit all the youth into the security agencies”.

Bryan, who is also NPP MP for Abetifi said the governing party does not recognise the vigilante group and has vowed to let them face the law.

“We as National Security… don’t recognise any of these vigilante groups apart from the Youth Wings of the political parties and any other institutions outside of these wings that do anything against the law would be dealt with just as it would be done to the recognised groups because law and order must be maintained in this country,” he stressed.

He said any youth who qualifies to work in any of the state agencies can apply and go through the requisite process of recruitment since that is the best practice for the safety of the country.

“If the security agencies are recruiting and they qualify, let them apply and go through the process, in the past where people were merely taken into the service anyhow are gone.

“We don’t want to create an environment that a new government is in power and therefore everybody must enter the security services. We can’t build a country in that way,” he stated.

The Minister of State however admitted that, “People have genuine concerns, with the people in the NPP, the young men that supported this party, the youth of Ghana and the President is doing everything he can; the economic management team is doing everything they can to create short-term solution such as NABCO, Forestry and others whilst they find long-term solutions to solve our unemployment problems”.

“We are building Ghana to compete internationally so it takes some time and unfortunately I’ll admit it is taking quite a little bit of time, but we need to do this to cross and have a sustainable economy to contain all the young men that we made the promise to”.

Meanwhile, Organiser of Delta Force, Hak-Musah Tasure, speaking on the same show said their action was the result of a failed promise.

He has since apologised over the incident on behalf of his colleagues.